Similar in characteristics to the Cobitidae family of loaches if crossed with Catfish, these are distributed throughout Eurasia and belong to the family Balitoridae. There is a large number of fish in this family, around 600 known species, most of which occur in cool and fast-flowing streams.

We have also included the Nemacheilidae family in this category as many of these fish were previously listed in the Balitoridae family under the "Nemacheilinae" sub-family but have since been upgraded to their own family.

The vast majority are freshwater and the most well known and recognisable is the Hillstream Loach, they are often mis-labelled in pet shops as "Butterfly Plecos", they are not at all related to the Pleco!